Digital Marketing for small business and public sector bodies

Business relies on three fundamental components: building an initial customer base, encouraging greater spend from them and then working to attract new ones.

It doesn't matter whether the business is big or small, local or multinational, these most basic of principles remain consistent.

Digital marketing is all about identifying who your customers are and initiating direct communications to encourage them to do more business with you - either straight away (through offers or incentives) or for when they are ready.

The basic principle is this - your customers are generally likely to return to you when they feel the need - but they'll do so more often when you ask them.

We are now initiating a digital marketing programme for small business and public sector bodies. Organisations who could certainly benefit from customer retention management practice but may not have their own capability to build and maintain the programme.

We're starting with the garden centre industry. Garden centres hold a very special place in many communities and, nowadays, their business model will be about so much more than just plants.

The industry is changing, though, with the DIY stores selling trolley-loads of plants and even supermarkets are dedicating valuable floor-space to climbers and shrubs. Seeing a pallet of compost on the floor fifteen feet away from the fresh fruit and vegetables made for a strange site.

Applying digital marketing principles - integrating email with social media - our aim is to help garden centres to engage with their known customers in a manner which is more conducive to their competitive environment. By structuring proactive communications that are subtle yet implicit in asking customers to return to spend, we can help garden centres to secure - and build - their business.